The Golden Girl and All

by Ralph Dennis

  “I won’t work for you. I wouldn’t even if the police weren’t looking for you. I’m working for your ex and I don’t care much for him either. If I get Maryann it goes to the court. The court decides.”

  “The way things are now, it might be better if Edward had her,” she said.

  “I’ll handle it on my terms.”

  “What terms?”

  “That you get the answer delivered and then you and all your friends stay out of it. I don’t want any freelance messing it up.”

  “All right.”

  “I mean it. If I look around and find some cowboy following me I quit and go home.”

  “I said I agreed.”

  I got up and stamped my feet. They were going numb. I came back to the swing and faced her. “How are you sending your answer?”

  “Mail,” she said.

  I shook my head. “If we’re going to the trouble to stake the place out and set up a follow, I want to be sure there’s something for them to pick up.”

  “I’ll send it over by a friend.”

  I arched my back, stretching the muscles, trying to get some heat inside my topcoat. “I’ll need to know who’s bringing it, what they look like.”

  “He’ll be young, black and wearing a black hat with a silver band.”

  “Around eleven o’clock?”

  She said yes.

  “Let’s walk some,” I said. “I’m freezing. We stopped on the narrow footbridge. I looked down at the dark water. “The bad thing, Peggy, is that you’re going to have to be prepared to go through with it. To go along with whatever deal you offer in your letter. If they’re smart the pick-up man won’t lead us anywhere. It’ll be a dead end. That happens you’ll have to buy Maryann back.”

  “I understand. I don’t think the others will like it.”

  I stepped around her and headed back to the car. When she was beside me I said, “I’ll need some way to get in touch with you.”

  “There’ll be someone at the Crystal all day tomorrow. Sitting at the counter. With a copy of Hip magazine.”

  She had very little more to say. She didn’t even say goodnight when she dropped me at the 7-11 store.

  I drove out to Marcy’s apartment without calling. All the lights were out and I didn’t see her car in the parking area out front. I didn’t even try the door bell. I drove back across town to my house. It was falling apart and the sad heavy blues were playing in my head.

  I should have had my mind on the business at hand. I parked in the driveway and was headed up the walk toward the unlighted front porch when the two men stepped out of the shadows at the far corner of the house. The one closest to me, a short, rather slim man, showed the gun. That nailed me to the walk. When they moved closer I saw that both of them had scarves wrapped around the lower part of their faces and hats pulled down low over their eyes.

  I was still trying to decide what my best move was when the larger man, the one who wasn’t showing a gun, stepped past the smaller man and hit me twice in the belly. As I was falling he stepped up closer and clubbed me on the side of the head.

  I was dry-heaving but I wasn’t out. The one with the gun leaned over and spoke through his scarf. It muffled his voice and made it sound like it was coming through a mouthful of oatmeal.

  “Stay out of it, Hardman.”

  I coughed and tasted bile in the back of my throat.

  The larger man bent over me. “You hear him, speak up.”

  I coughed again.

  “Speak up.”

  I wanted to say something but I was afraid I was going to vomit.

  “I think he’s going to lose his supper,” the smaller man said. He moved away and I lost him in the darkness. “Finish it,” he said.

  I caught the first kick low in the ribs on my right side. I tried to roll away from the second and it him me on the point of my hip. The man doing the kicking was grunting with the effort and when he was directly above me and the sky behind him I could see the spray and spurt of condensation.

  There was a third and a fourth kick and I knew he was working his way up to my head. I got my arms up and tried to protect my face. I caught one kick on my shoulder and another across a forearm.

  I quit counting the kicks. Some of them seemed like echoes anyway and when I thought I was going to lose it all and go under the man back in the shadows, the one with the gun said, “That’s enough.”

  After they left … I didn’t even try to turn and see what they were driving … I lay out there on the frozen ground, grunting and whimpering. It took me a long time to decide whether I wanted to live or die. I don’t remember what it was I decided, but I found myself crawling on all fours up the front steps.

  I don’t think I set an Olympic record for getting the front’ door open. I think it took me half an hour.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “They only kicked the ugly parts of you,” Hump said. “I assume they tried for the pretty parts and you didn’t let them close.”

  I don’t think that Hump was in a very good mood. It wasn’t that he hadn’t wanted to help, but he was puffing into the phone when we talked and I had enough sense left to realize that I’d caught him about thigh-deep in some business. So I’d said he didn’t have to come, that he could send Marsh Whitman if he could find him.

  “The shit you say,” he’d said. And he’d come, though it had taken him some time to find Whitman. Whitman was a black underground “doctor”, a young black who’d almost finished medical school before he’d gotten into some kind of trouble and dropped out. For a hundred or so he’d fix a gunshot wound or a cutting. For a poor black that couldn’t afford to pay it was free.

  Whitman had used about a roll of tape on my ribs and he’d poked and prodded me until I was sweating and clenching my teeth. Before he went into the kitchen to have a drink he said he thought I had a couple of floating ribs, ribs that had almost been kicked loose. “You ought to take it easy for a few days,” he said.

  Hump came back from pouring him a drink and sat on the edge of the bed. “You know them?”

  “No.” I’d started to shake my head but it hurt too much.

  “Somebody worried about their faces being seen. Wonder why?”

  “Past me,” I said.

  “Not your usual one-shot hardasses. Not the type that take their fifty dollars and disappear into the woodwork.”

  “The two the old lady told us about,” I said. “In size they’d match the two that were at Harper’s apartment when he had Maryann with him.”

  Hump nodded. “Not shy with her, but shy with you. Think on that.”

  I tried the whole time I was alone in the house, while Hump was dropping off Whitman. It didn’t come to anything, so I stored it away in the “loose ends” section of my mind.

  Art came by as soon as he could get away.

  “You talked to her and you just let her walk away?”

  “She drove away,” I said. “Hell, Art, it was the only way I could talk to her.”

  “If somebody hadn’t already kicked the crap out of you, I’d be tempted.”

  I let the anger run out of him before I went on to tell him what Peggy had told me about the murder of Randy King. He made me repeat what she’d said about Randy furnishing the stuff and her assertion that her people hadn’t killed Randy, that it would have been foolish because he’d said he could furnish a lot more.

  “You thinking what I am?” Art asked.

  “Where does a young cop get a lot of dope?”

  “He makes a big bust and doesn’t turn the stuff in and he doesn’t make the arrest. Just scares the shit out of the one he busts or maybe uses some muscle.”

  “But he wasn’t working narcotics,” I said.

  “I’ll have to check this out,” Art said. “Until we know for sure this stays in this room.”

  “Done,” I said.

  Hump shook his head. He hadn’t followed us. It was just as well. Neither of us wanted to explain.

  But Art couldn’t sh
ake it. It rankled him and turned him sour. It carried over and almost messed up my plans for the next day. He heard me out.

  “So you make this agreement that we’ll pull her chestnuts out of the fire? We do her scut work and she goes right on selling that crap on the street.”

  “That might be the price,” I said.

  “It’s too high.”

  “Other benefits,” I said. “If we can believe her, the people who have the kid now are the ones who probably killed Randy King and the Harper guy.”

  “And if she’s lying to us, we find the kid and that’s all?”

  “Maybe,” Hump said. “Even if we find the kid and that’s all, it’s still worth it.”

  “To you, maybe.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You’re being paid to find her,” Art said. “It’s nothing to me.”

  “Check the new stuff over at the department,” I said. “You’re going to find that Edward Simpson reported a kidnapping up in Chapel Hill. He did it this afternoon.”

  “You have a hand in that?”

  I nodded. “From the way you talk one would think you didn’t have kids.”

  “Don’t try that con on me.”

  “We’ll do it without you. Everybody knows the cops are more interested in busting whores than solving murders and kidnappings.”

  “Like it or not, you know damned well I’m coming.”

  “A man of instant decision,” Hump said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Why am I a man of instant … ?” Art began.

  “Why are you in?”

  “Without me you two could screw it up,” Art said.

  We decided upon the drill and Art said he could furnish the walkie-talkies and a policewoman. He left, yawning, and saying that he had to return to the department and think up some excuse so he could get a couple of hours of sleep.

  Hump bedded down on the sofa.

  Twice before I went to bed I started dialing Marcy’s number. Each time, five digits into it, I changed my mind. It didn’t seem worthwhile.

  At nine-thirty Hump dropped me in front of the Journal-Constitution building. He’d work his way over to the Apco parking building across the street and try to use a twenty to buy him a position in the driveway on the lower level so that he could see the main entrance of the building.

  It was a new building, one the papers had just moved into, but it looked like it had been built on top of a World War II pill box. I went in and found Art at the security desk. He was leaning on the counter talking to the guard and looking at the two decks of TV monitors that wrapped halfway around the security area. He saw me and pushed away from the counter and showed me some red-rimmed eyes.

  “Let me show you around,” he said.

  “How does it look?”

  “Like Oak Ridge,” he said. “Better than I thought.”

  “We could use a break or two.”

  Art led me to the bank of elevators. They were on our left as we faced outside, to the right of anyone as they entered. “Only one way out through here. On the fourth floor you could exit through the shop area. But there’s a guard there and you need Journal-Constitution identification to get past the guard. If our man, after he picks up the letter, gets on the elevator we alert the guard up there to turn him back.”

  He turned me and we walked past the security guard, down a hallway past the Personnel office and the Payroll office. At the end of the hall there was a single elevator. “This goes from the underground parking lot to any of the floors upstairs. A news story breaks, a reporter gets on the elevator and rides it down to the underground garage, gets in one of the press cars.”

  “Might be a way our man could get out,” I said.

  Art shook his head. “No chance at all. That security guard up there with the monitors has one that shows him anyone trying to enter the underground parking and one that shows him anyone trying to drive out that way. And he’s the one that opens and closes the only door to the garage.” We walked back up the hall to the security desk. “If our man starts down this hall the guard’ll stop him and turn him back.”

  “He’s bottlenecked. Only one way in and one way out.”

  “Beautiful, huh?”

  We passed the security desk and turned right. We were at the Want Ad counter. A dark-haired girl in a blue pants suit moved up to the counter to meet us. I’d opened my mouth to say that I didn’t want to place an ad when Art laughed. “You know how we used to say that all policewomen wore army shoes? Times change.”

  The dark-haired girl smiled and held out her hand. “I’m Mary Barton.”

  “I take it all back,” I said.

  “Unless Peggy plays a game on us we’ll know when the answer to the ad gets here. The black hat with the silver band. The really important one is when the pick-up’s made. I’ll be at the security desk, obviously a businessman who’s trying to see someone upstairs. And having some trouble getting there.”

  “You look like a businessman who went to an orgy last night,” I said.

  “It happens,” Art said. “Now, when our man asks Mary for the mail for 44B she’s going to hit a trouble button that will light up on the board at the security desk. No sound or anything, just a light that comes on.”

  I nodded. It sounded good so far.

  “As soon as the light goes on I’ll leave the security desk and go over to the bank of elevators up by the front entrance. I’ll get my look at the pick-up man. If he tries to move toward the back elevator the guard’ll turn him back. If he gets on the front elevators I’ll ride with him and see what floor he goes to. My guess is he’ll go back out the front entrance. If he does that I’ll reach you on the walkie-talkie and give you a description. If he’s on foot you follow him and Hump tails both of you in the car. If he’s picked up out front you tail him in Hump’s car and we’ll play leapfrog.”

  “Looks good.”

  I followed Art back to the security desk. The guard handed him an attaché case. Art opened it and handed me a walkie-talkie in a brown paper sack. “I’ll give you a minute to get across to the parking deck and well test these.”

  I waved at Mary Barton and went outside and crossed to the Apco parking deck. Hump was parked there with his nose almost out on the street. The walkie-talkies checked out and we settled in for the long wait.

  By my watch a couple of minutes after eleven Hump tapped me on the shoulder. “The black dude there.”

  I turned and looked down Marietta in the direction of Five Points. The young black was on the other side of the street, on the corner, waiting for the light to change. He was wearing a black hat with a wide silver band. “At least that part of it’s on time.”

  When the light changed the black sprinted off the curb like coming out of the blocks. He slowed down in front of First Georgia Bank, passed the narrow vacant lot at a slow walk, and stopped before the entrance to the Journal-Constitution building. He seemed to be hesitating, like he didn’t want to go in.

  “Move it,” Hump said in a low whisper next to me.

  If it was a matter of nerves, the young black shook it off after a few seconds. He straightened his back and went in.

  He was grinning to himself when he came out two or three minutes later. He stopped and looked around. The grin stayed there and he swaggered down Marietta toward Five Points.

  “Free at last,” Hump said. “You see, he thought somebody was going to put an arm on him in there.”

  The walkie-talkie crackled at us. “The letter’s here,” Art said.

  “Yeah,” I answered, “saw it delivered.”

  “Stand by.”

  Noon came. The foot traffic on Marietta got thicker. The office workers on their lunch break or off to the banks. It would be this way for another hour or so. If I was planning the pick-up it would be my time, the situation I’d choose. It worked for you and against you. The pick-up man might be able to lose a tail better on a crowded street. He could hurl himself into crowds, bury himself in she
er numbers. On the other hand, the tail wasn’t as obvious. The pick-up man would have trouble isolating the tail. On an almost empty street it was child-simple.

  “What you think?” Hump asked.

  I shook my head. If they had figured the angles it wasn’t worth a guess. It was a matter of personal choice. Stand on the fence and jump either way. I’d option for the crowd. They might go for the relatively empty street.

  Twelve-thirty. Twelve-forty-five.

  “Pick-up,” Art said over the walkie-talkie. “Heading out the front right now. Longish blond hair, six feet tall, wearing a gray, double knit suit, dark tie.”

  “There he is,” Hump said.

  “Got him,” I said into the walkie-talkie.

  He was a big guy, broad shoulders and girl waisted. His hair long but not freaky long, just modish. Hair didn’t stir in the wind out there, probably sprayed.

  “What’s he doing?” Art asked.

  “Just standing out front. Looking around.”

  “Make it,” Art said.

  “I don’t think he’s a walker.”

  “The green Electra,” Hump said.

  A green Electra slowed as it covered the last few yards. It pulled to a stop. The pick-up man, instead of getting into the passenger seat, walked around the front of the Electra and opened the door on the driver’s side. I didn’t get a good look at the original driver. He looked like a young kid, someone in his late teens.

  I called Art and read him the plate numbers.

  “Keep in touch,” Art said. “I’ll catch up soon as I can.”

  Hump kicked the engine over. “Give him a start, half a block or so.”

  The green Electra pulled away from the curb heading toward Five Points. I waited until it reached the corner of Forsyth and Marietta. It caught a red light. I nodded at Hump and Hump eased across the street and into the proper lane. We were six or seven cars behind.

  “Heading toward Five Points,” I said into the walkie-talkie.

  “Be right behind you,” Art said. “My car’s coming around front now.”

  The light changed and the Electra angled over and worked over into the right hand turn lane. Hump followed his lead. “I think he’s turning onto Peachtree, headed for Whitehall.”